A.G. Gancarski
Liberal activist group American Bridge is contending that Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam may be sunk by his “summer of scandal.”
“If you look at Putnam’s news coverage this summer, it isn’t hard to understand why this happened. While DeSantis has seen his support among likely Republican primary voters surge following President Trump’s ‘re-endorsement’ of his primary campaign, Putnam’s own self-inflicted wounds have left him exposed,” the group contends via a memo released Wednesday.
“Putnam has spent years planning his campaign for Governor. But while he was plotting the next steps of his political career, he wasn’t focused on the job he had. It seems a week cannot go by without a new scandal calling into question Putnam’s basic competency to serve as Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture, let alone run the entire State of Florida,” American Bridge adds.
The memo cites news coverage of issues in Putnam’s office regarding concealed weapon permits that shouldn’t have been issued, a dangerous Daytona roller coaster given the green light just before a derailment sent nine to the hospital, and sexual harassment issues in his office.
Putnam’s pivot to veterans’ issues, meanwhile, is deemed doomed by the Bridgers, who note that in Congress, Putnam voted twice against increasing bankruptcy protections for military members, and then voted against increased job training for those returning home.
“All of this may not have even happened had Putnam been minding the store and focused on doing his current job instead of running for his next one. If the current trajectory holds, and DeSantis does win the Republican primary, people will look back on Adam Putnam’s summer of scandal as the beginning of the end of his political career. He’ll have no one to blame but himself,” the memo wraps.
Putnam World, meanwhile, panned the memo as “fake news.”
Meredith Beatrice, comms director for Putnam’s campaign, retorted that the memo is “[f]urther proof the liberal activists and liberal media are in cohorts to take down the leading conservative in Florida – they’re now boasting their fake news as accomplishments.”
